Here is a post that is long overdue!

~ Annual photos! It must have been that time of year or something because very soon after I posted Steven's newest annual photo, I got four more! In alphabetical order, here are ...



Keyly, who lives in Honduras and turns ten later this month. :) Ten seems like such a milestone, doesn't it? haha. I'm just weirded out because I started sponsoring her when she was six and so I'm like, "What~? She's ten already??" xD;



Ma.Fe, who is eleven, lives in the Philippines, and got a haircut recently it looks like! :) Oh man you guys, in one of her letters she encouraged me to buy myself a Filipino-English dictionary, and I read that and was like "Hahaha no way I'll ever find one for sale in Victoria!" and then OH MY GOSH I DID. One little tiny one in Bolen Books, but I must say I was very impressed! I love seeing bookstores expanding their languages section. x)



Mercy, who is twelve and lives in Zambia. I think here she's wearing the coat that she received as part of her Special Gift. haha it still kind of breaks my brain to think of any part of Africa as being cold enough to need a coat. xD;



Yesica, who is eleven and lives in Colombia. It took a while for me to receive her first letter but since my last sponsorship entry I've received a couple of letters from her. :)

~ Special Gift! This time it was Steven's turn. He lives in Colombia and he turned five in early October. And he got a bed!! :D (Pics still scanned by me, still hosted by Photobucket.)



From the letter his mother wrote: Receive cordial greetings from Steven and me. I tell you he is in very good health and very happy to receive so nice gifts. He liked so much the bed, the light mattress and the pillow. He didn't have these items so he used to sleep with me. From now, he will count on his own bed and I am very sure he will enjoy a lot.



Completely by accident, I managed to time it so that he got his new bed only a few days before his birthday. Not bad, haha. xD;;

Also, I think these pictures are super adorable. AND I WAS TRYING SO HARD TO GET THROUGH THIS ENTRY WITHOUT SAYING THAT--! xD;



(You have now seen the inside of a Colombian furniture store! I have been trying to decide whether those decorations hanging from the ceiling are crazy early Christmas decorations or not, haha.)

Also adorable is the complete list of items they bought (emphasis mine lolz):

1 single bed
1 light mattress
1 furniture transportation
1 pillow
1 candies

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I approve! xD;

~ E-mailage! In August I sent an e-mail to Children International in order to find out how many of the children I sponsor have siblings who are not sponsored. The answer: Kelvin, Yesica, Mercy, and Ma.Fe all have at least one sibling who does not have a sponsor. So if any of my dear readers ever decides to sponsor a child ... ? haha, this is not me trying to force sponsorship upon you, this is me awkwardly not really knowing what to do with this information. :/ I would be especially interested in finding a sponsor for either of Kelvin's younger sisters, seeing as how his family record has just been updated and they're still living on $7 a month.

~ Speaking of! At the beginning of this week I sent CI another e-mail, this time asking if they might be able to find out if any of the families of the children I sponsor would be interesting in an Income Generating Project, which is CI speak for a home business that could bring in some more income. If any of them do want to start such a Project, then I would be able to use CI in a way kind of closer to what Kiva does, where you provide the money that someone then uses to start or strengthen their business. If none of the families want to start an Income Generating Project, that's totally fine, but it could be kind of neat if one of them did. :) I have to wait about two months before I start to hear any answers, but I'm definitely looking forward to hearing them! :)

(I linked to the blog On the Needles a couple months ago and that's kind of where I got the idea, actually. Here's a post where she talks about helping to start an Income Generating Project for one of her sponsored children's families. :) )